General Maintenance Conditions

Those who receive cultures are encouraged to duplicate within reason the conditions used in the Collection, when handling newly acquired cultures, to reduce the chance of losing the culture. After a stock culture is established, subcultures may be used for testing other conditions. These general maintenance conditions are not our recommendations to achieve optimal growth rates and large quantities of algae. Information on the best growth conditions and media must be acquired in other literature or through careful experimentation. For additional details on the long-term culture maintenance conditions utilized at UTEX, visit the Culture Maintenance Guides page.

Preparation of Living Algal Strains

Aliquots of algal strains that are maintained on agar slants are transferred to the surface of fresh slants in 20 mm diameter glass screw-captubes in preparation for shipment. The fresh inocula are grown in a diurnal light cycle for at least 3 days until a macroscopically visible lawn appears.
Approximately 15 mL aliquots of strains that are maintained as liquid cultures are transferred to screw-cap tubes on the day of shipment. Agar and liquid cultures for a customer are packaged within a Styrofoam™ box and shipped on the same day they are packaged.

One tube of agar or liquid culture constitutes an order for a single culture of a single strain of living algae. UTEX makes no attempt to quantify the number of organisms or other characteristics of the culture. UTEX only guarantees the identity of the organism as specified in the strain history.

General Maintenance Conditions

Those who receive cultures are encouraged to duplicate within reason the conditions used in the Collection, when handling newly acquired cultures, to reduce the chance of losing the culture. After a stock culture is established, subcultures may be used for testing other conditions. These general maintenance conditions are not our recommendations to achieve optimal growth rates and large quantities of algae. Information on the best growth conditions and media must be acquired in other literature or through careful experimentation. For additional details on the long-term culture maintenance conditions utilized at UTEX, visit the Culture Maintenance Guides page.